Labor Senator Kristina Keneally campaign posters vandalised in Bonnyrigg

Campaign posters for Kristina Keneally have been defaced, with the vandals alluding to allegations against the Labor Senator.

Vandalised campaign posters of Labor Senator Kristina Keneally spelling out the word ‘bully’ have been spotted in Bonnyrigg in the lower house seat of Fowler, which she is contesting in the coming election.

At least nine posters in two separate horizontal arrangements in two different areas of the suburb have been spotted, having been vandalised with spray-painted letters forming the word ‘bully’.

One set of the posters is attached to a cream-coloured fence of a residential house.

The other is zip tied to a green fence outside a local tiling business on Bonnyrigg Ave.

Kristina Keneally election campaign posters have been defaced with the word 'BULLY' in Sydney's west. Picture: Supplied

Ms Keneally, who made her home on Scotland Island in Pittwater 46km away from Fowler before moving to Liverpool last year was controversially parachuted into the southwest Sydney seat and has been the subject of allegations of bullying ever since the death of Victorian Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching.

Keneally attended Kimberley Kitching’s funeral despite the allegations. Picture: David Caird

Since Ms Kitching’s death, it has been revealed that she considered Senator Keneally part of a clique of “mean girls” in parliament responsible for shutting down and isolating fellow female Labor parliamentarians. Senator Keneally has strongly denied the allegations.

Senator Keneally was also recently accused of “ostracising” retired Labor MP Emma Husar.

“Kristina Keneally treated me in much the same way that’s been described. She ostracised me. She froze me outright from her preselection and her campaign in Bennelong,” Ms Husar told Sky News Australia.

“I was very helpful to that campaign and Kristina virtually ignored me after she used me and got what she needed out of me and continued to trounce through that place like she owned it.”

Behind once of the fences where the defaced posters are hung, local business Bonnyrigg Tiles had no idea that the posters had been tampered with.

Election posters are regularly hung on the fence outside Bonnyrigg Tiles, but no one at the company knew Keneally’s had been defaced. Picture: Supplied

The vandalised signs were replaced by Wednesday afternoon. Picture: Supplied

A staff member confirmed that the fence was the company’s property, but no one on the team was involved in hanging the posters up.

They said posters are normally put there during election campaigns and that they didn’t really mind.

“We’re not so sure about it,” a staff member told The Daily Telegraph.

“We didn’t notice (the posters had been defaced).”

A spokesperson from Senator Keneally’s office said the attack was an attack on private property.

“This criminal act is an attack on the private property of Labor supporters across South West Sydney who offered to place these signs out the front of their homes and small businesses,” a spokesperson said.

NSW Police said no reports have been made about the vandalised posters.
In recent days Ms Keneally has been among of group of female federal Labor frontbenchers, including Penny Wong, under scrutiny for their behaviour to ­deceased Victorian Labor senator Kimberley Kitching.

Ms Wong has denied the allegations, but admitted to making an insensitive comment about Ms Kitching’s childlessness.

Prominent female politicians have also slammed the culture within the Labor Party amid the so-called “mean girls” claims, with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson calling for an investigation.

The claims follow the death of Senator Kimberley Kitching last week from a suspected heart attack.

Ms Kitching’s friends, including former Labor leader Bill Shorten, say the 52-year-old felt she was under significant stress prior to her heart attack, including because of internal disputes within the party.

She was sidelined from the party’s senate tactics committee and rarely given a question to ask in parliament.

Beyond that, Labor women have largely closed ranks and avoided questions about the party’s track record on bully in the wake of allegations Kimberley Kitching was isolated by senate leadership.

Anthony Albanese has pledged to review the Labor Party’s internal complaints handling process and will permanently honour Kimberley Kitching with an unprecedented award to be handed out at every National Conference in her name.

There was an outpouring of grief at Kitching’s funeral on Monday, in which her husband Andrew Landeryou voiced his anger at the “cantankerous cabal” in the party that targeted her. However it is understood he has given his blessing to Mr Albanese’s gesture.